


Her Gaze

by DaniJayNel



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clexa, F/F, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 06:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3926524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaniJayNel/pseuds/DaniJayNel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It bothered Clarke sometimes—the way Lexa stared. She needed to know the reason behind it, so she asked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Gaze

It bothered Clarke sometimes—the way Lexa stared. She did so unflinching, desperate. Clarke always sensed it when she wasn’t looking, always caught it when she was. Lexa looked at her like she was afraid, that if she did not leave her gaze on Clarke, she would simply cease to exist. As if Clarke was just a product of her imagination, too good to be true, too bad to be real. Lexa always gazed at her this way.

Eventually, after wars had been won, small battles lost, Clarke caught Lexa staring at her from across the tent. The brunette had a combination of grounders and Sky People seated around the table, all talking about the new treaty and its new rules. Indra was speaking with vehemence, and Abby was quickly disagreeing her. Clarke watched Lexa as Lexa watched her. The brunette should have been concentrating on the conversation at hand, but it was apparent that she was not. She still managed to hear the last snippet of the conversation, and successfully shot Indra’s idea down. The warrior wanted strict laws that had the penalty of death if broken. That was too harsh.

“We just made pace, Indra,” Lexa toned sharply in Trigedasleng. “We don’t need more reason to be at each other’s throats,” she ended in English. She glanced up, meeting Clarke’s blue eyes again, and Clarke felt herself burn at the gaze. _Why?_ she wondered. _Why do you look at me like that?_

“What do you suppose then, _Heda?_ ” Indra spat in a way that was angry but respectful at the same time. Clarke wondered how she managed that, but shrugged it off to stare at Lexa. The brunette looked to the table as she considered, face as stoic as ever.

“Give me a day to think,” she told them. “We will return here tomorrow.”

Indra rolled her eyes like she had been expecting it, but conceded and headed out of the tent with everyone else. The only ones that didn’t leave were Abby, Clarke and Lexa. Abby went over to her daughter, smiling hesitantly.

“Will you walk back to Camp Jaha with us?” she asked, hopeful.

Clarke smiled lightly but shook her head. “I’ll head back alone later.” She caught Lexa’s eye, realized that the brunette was listening and that she wouldn’t, in fact, be alone on her trek home. “Leave without me.”

Abby opened her mouth to protest, but she felt Lexa staring their way and decided not to mention anything. “Be safe,” she said softly, and then she was gone.

Clarke took a large breath and then headed over to Lexa’s throne, where the fierce commander had retreated to. The bed would have been more comfortable, but Clarke didn’t comment on the fact. She paused beside the brunette. “You seemed distracted back there.”

Lexa inhaled sharply and then flicked her eyes up to Clarke’s face. “Very observant of you, Clarke. These pointless meetings bore me. I should be doing something more worthwhile, not arguing with adults as if we are all unsatisfied children.”

“No,” Clarke disagreed. “This is important. If we don’t figure something out between our people, there might be civil wars. If we can’t have rules and boundaries between us, then what keeps us from crossing certain lines?”

Clarke shivered under Lexa’s intense gaze. She could see the commander’s eyes trail from her throat to her jaw, to her lips and then up to her eyes, where they stayed, stuck, drawn in, needy.

Lexa relaxed then in her seat and pressed her elbow to the arm rest. Slowly her features fell, and then she frowned deeply and exhaled. “You have a point, Clarke. You and I should sit together and work out the new rules between us.”

Clarke smiled, relieved. “See? You can totally be reasonable when you want to be. I can also totally be right all the time.”

Lexa’s brow lifted. “You can be as wrong as you are right, Clarke.”

Clarke chuckled. “Sure thing, Lexa. So when do you want to work all this out? I think Indra and my mother might already be plotting each other’s death.”

Lexa’s lips twitched ever so slightly in the way that told Clarke that she was amused and wished to smile, but wouldn’t. Clarke’s chest fluttered at the sight, warming, and she suddenly felt the need to make Lexa smile, laugh without restraint. Maybe she’d try for it later.

“We can start now, if you wish,” Lexa answered.

They headed back to the table, much to Lexa’s dismay, and pulled out rolls of paper and pens to write with. Clarke first wrote down all the rules that their individual groups already had, neatly placed in tables that had a level of severity in the column beside the rule. Most of them were pretty harsh, Clarke realized. Lexa saw no errors when she read over the list, dictating that hard decisions always had to be made in hard times, and that one was weak for not being able to go through with them. She decided that the rules that had been on the Ark were fair. Clarke disagreed, but it would have turned into a harsh argument if she had voiced it. Instead she redirected the conversation, deciding that perhaps a break was in order.

“How about we rest our minds for a moment?” the blonde suggested.

Lexa straightened, jaw tightening. “There is never rest for the mind, Clarke.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Do you ever relax, like, at all?

Instead of firing back with some harsh logic or even a tease, Lexa stiffened to the point that it looked painful, and fixed Clarke with a heavy, pained expression. Clarke immediately recognized the look in the commander’s eyes, and her throat closed up as her heart began to pump harder. Lexa’s eyes swirled with so much emotion, even when her face itself did not. How could one person feel _so much_ when they pretended not to feel a thing? Clarke wanted to speak, but couldn’t. Lexa simply stared at her, saying everything and nothing at the same time, just with her eyes. She then inhaled suddenly, flicked her eyes away and back to the papers.

“We should continue.”

Clarke found herself finally able to breathe again. What had been up with that look? Sometimes, Lexa was simply too intense for her. She’d always leave Lexa’s tent trembling, weak in the knees.

They continued with the paper, coming up with new rules and boundaries that weren’t that harsh. A few from Clarke Lexa did not like, but she ended up allowing them in the end. Likewise, Clarke disagreed with the few rules Lexa had set, but let it go once Lexa fully explained the motivation. A lot of time passed as the two spoke and argued, and when they neared the end of it, Lexa stopped participating and starting staring, again. She leaned back in the chair, lips pressed together and eyes fixed on the blonde’s face.

“So I think that if a grounder enters Sky People territory, they should…” she trailed off then, suddenly aware of the gaze at her back. She shivered lightly, swallowed the sudden thickness in her throat. _There it is,_ she thought without even looking. And when she did, her breath caught in her throat. _That look. I need to know._ Slowly, deliberately, Clarke dropped the pen and pushed the papers from them. Lexa watched this, too, and lifted a brow in question when Clarke turned back to her.

“Are we done?”

“No,” Clarke answered. Her voice sounded heavier than it should have been, and her heart was racing. “Actually, there’s something I want to ask.” She didn’t continue. Lexa stared. Her eyes were harsh and soft at the same time, and when Clarke took in a deep, shaky breath, the commander softened slightly and leaned forward.

“What is the matter, Clarke?”

How to start? Clarke nibbled on her lip in thought, and Lexa watched. A small flash of something slipped through her eyes, and Clarke wondered if it was desire, but then the blonde scooted closer, and nothing but warmth washed over Lexa’s face. If the brunette knew what her expressions said, then she showed no indication. If she showed it on purpose, Clarke would never know. But she had to ask. Had to.

“Why?” she choked out. _Smooth, Clarke,_ she thought to herself. _She’s definitely a mind reader._ She refrained from rolling her eyes at herself and cleared her throat.

“Why what, Clarke?” Lexa became painfully serious, like what Clarke was about to say could possibly break her, and Clarke caught herself wondering that it might.

“Your eyes… they…” she inhaled to calm her nerves. “You look at me, a lot,” she explained. “Why? Why are you always staring? You look so scared when you look at me, like I could shatter and break apart if you don’t. Like _you_ could if you don’t.”

If Lexa was surprised by Clarke’s observation then she didn’t let on. She merely watched, waited for Clarke to finish with her eyes blazing and her lips still. When the blonde was done, Lexa stood and headed over to her bed.

“I’m tired, Clarke,” she said stiffly. All the affection from earlier was gone. Clarke wondered where Lexa had drained it to. “We can talk more of the rules tomorrow. I will send a guard to fetch you. Octavia should be near, tell her to walk you back.” She started to remove some of the heavy layers of her clothes, back to Clarke.

The blonde stood, heart in her stomach and blood pumping with frustration and anger. She would not press the issue. If Lexa wanted to be emotionally stuffed, then so be it. Even though Clarke was desperate to know, hopeful that what she thought the reasons could be were close enough to the truth. So she decided to leave without a word, without even a goodbye, and headed for the flap of the tent that was closed for privacy, but would open with the sweep of an arm. Just before she left, Lexa’s voice stopped her, and she sucked in a sudden breath.

“I looked away from Costia,” Lexa uttered shakily. She still had her back to Clarke, and she wouldn’t turn around even when Clarke did. “For a moment. Just a second, I looked away, Clarke. And she was taken.”

“So you think, what, if you keep watching me that I’ll be safe? We aren’t always together, Lexa. It’s not your responsibility to watch over me.”

“That is not the only reason,” Lexa argued. Her shoulders dropped, as if everything was simply too heavy for her shoulders to carry. “You capture me, Clarke. When I look at you, it’s like looking at all the beauty in life that I’m not allowed. I can never look away.”

Clarke’s heart squeezed painfully in her chest, and with purpose she strode all the way to Lexa until she could wrap her in a tight, meaningful hug. Lexa stiffened in her arms and made no move to return the embrace. “Who said you aren’t allowed?” Clarke whispered. She could feel Lexa’s heartbeat, the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

“I am a leader, Clarke. You know this. I have more important responsibilities.”

Clarke sighed. “For just one moment, can you pretend that we aren’t leaders, and that we’re both just two teenagers that are infatuated with each other?”

Lexa shuddered, and finally lifted a hand to clasp it over Clarke’s that were pressed to her stomach. She inhaled, exhaled, and then Clarke felt her shift. “Okay,” she whispered softly. “Just for a moment.”

Clarke smiled. “I’m not going anywhere, you know. Leader or not, I care about you. I’d like for you to care about me too, and show it.”

Lexa chuckled lightly, and turned so that finally their eyes could meet. She lifted a hand and caressed Clarke’s cheek with the softest of touches. “I already do,” she uttered.

Clarke smiled, and for a beautiful instant, nothing but that moment existed. No fight for survival, no warring sides, just her and Lexa, two people, two souls reaching for each other. And that was alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Yo. So I think I’m coming a long way with writing Clexa! The more I write for them the better I’ll get, for sure ^^ also, I made a poll because I have a few big Clexa story ideas I can’t choose from. Poll ends at the end of this month! Head over and vote (http://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=554faeb4e4b042eef174d927), if you’d like to have a say in what I write next :D thanks for reading!


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